


destiny, manifest

by etben



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-02-27
Updated: 2007-02-27
Packaged: 2017-10-21 18:56:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 980
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/228518
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/etben/pseuds/etben
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>they step through the gate into more blue.</p>
            </blockquote>





	destiny, manifest

**Author's Note:**

> for [](http://picfor1000.livejournal.com/profile)[**picfor1000**](http://picfor1000.livejournal.com/) 2007
> 
> Thanks muchly to [](http://torakowalski.livejournal.com/profile)[**torakowalski**](http://torakowalski.livejournal.com/) , who did a lightning-fast beta and prevented a very silly mistake.

[   
](http://pics.livejournal.com/etben/pic/0000hbxc/)

They step through the gate into more blue.

At first, Rodney thinks it's an error, a flaw in the dialing sequence, the one fuckup that will finally kill them all. He's composing an ass-chewing for Davis and Selvin – has to be them, they're both the newest and the stupidest – when he realizes that, no: that's the _sky_ , a deep saturation of color reaching down to scoured land.

There's nothing else to see, no matter which way he looks: sand, dirt, and rocks, spread out before them under the canopy of the sky.

Beside him, Teyla is still, silent.

*

Stasmin – P4X-994 – has changed a great deal. Gone are the fields of golden grain, the high-growing forests of whispering trees. The land is scorched and bare and empty, tumbled rocks and dull sand all the way to the horizon.

The sky, in contrast, is bluer than she has ever seen it, high and dark and cloudless. The sun seems larger in all this emptiness, close and bright, a gleaming gem set in bands of blue. With no trees for shade, the light is hot against her skin; out of the corner of her eye, she watches as Rodney rubs sunscreen across his face. Next, he will offer it to John, who will wave it away and spend two days scratching the tip of his nose.

She draws a breath: the air is cool and dry. Some things, at least, have yet to change.

John glances over at her, eyebrows raised. This is her mission, her idea; it is to her to call it, to say whether they stay or go. And as much as she misses the tents of the Stasminu, she will turn around and leave; there is nothing for them, here.

Then Ronon starts to run.

*

It takes him a while to notice them – not that there's anything else to look at, but they're on the top of a ridge, exposed, and he spends the first few minutes checking for movement, making sure that the land is as dead as it looks. Nothing, though; not even the dead-brown scrub and slow, sideways movement of desert things. He tips his head back – sun on his face, his neck, brighter than on Atlantis – and then, looking down, notices them.

No danger, not here, or at least nothing more than the desert can give him, so he runs without thinking, stretch and flow of muscles carrying him on, toes digging into the shifting give of sand. Farther than they look, but not too far; five minutes later, he's standing beside a fleet of gray-brown ships, curved up at the end, long and tall.

His team is behind him, still – Sheppard chivvying McKay along, taunts and arguments floating half-heard and all-familiar over the sand. Teyla's ahead of them, running light and easy – two minutes out, maybe less. Ronon sketches a wave, gets the expected responses, presses the door open with easy hands.

Inside: supplies. Food, mostly; shriveled fruit and crumbling bread inside stiff-edged sacks. Technology in other boxes – mostly communications, some light arms. Nothing he hasn't seen before, on one world or another, but he closes the boxes carefully behind him. Respect is important, even when there's nothing else to see. Maybe more, even, here where the air is stale and chill, where life has died contained.

He can hear them, now, slap of feet on sand, and goes outside to welcome them.

They will take this place apart, and that is good; that is the shape of respect, here, now.

*

They're not much like the jumpers – they're glossy and tan and carefully aerodynamic, triangles of calculated flight sweeping back in smooth curves. They have _wings_ , even.

Still, some things don't change, no matter where they go, and it feels right that here, on this desert world, he can pause with one hand on a burnished brown hull, the familiar-unfamiliar curve of something meant to _fly_.

Inside, it's dark and close, and he takes a moment with his hand on the doorframe, letting his eyes adjust. McKay is tucked under the control panel, flashlight propped between his neck and his shoulder, and Teyla is watching the readings that flash by.

Ronon is looking through the boxes; after a moment to figure out his search pattern, John grabs the second box on his right and lifts the flaps.

Most of it will be useless, of course; too outdated or dehydrated to be worth hauling back to the jumper. Still, no way to know unless they check, and it's pretty clear that nobody else will be using this stuff. He sorts things into piles as they go – things he recognizes, things they can use, things with the telltale shine of Ancient Technology, humming tired and thoughtful under his hands. At the end, he's got two boxes of technology that doesn't look too obsolete and another three of clothing in sizes they can wear. Ronon has ammo and grain, no drier now than when it was packed away.

"McKay?" Time to see if Rodney has an idea – but Teyla answers.

"There was a drought," she says. "It had started when last I was here – but we did not think it would come so fast, so far – "

"Climate change," McKay adds. "Looks like the planet got too close to the sun." He scans through another screen, too fast for John to catch any text. "These were meant to be escape vessels – they were going to go to the moon, see?"

"Prairie schooners," John says, looking at the plans on McKay's tablet, fine dark lines marking out trajectories, velocities, possibilities. "Heading out west."

"Oh, yes, Colonel," Rodney snaps. "Go ahead – reduce things to the most Americentric perspective possible." He shrugs. "Probably got culled before they could –" His head snaps up, and he winces, but Teyla smiles.

"It is not a new story, Rodney."

And the thing is, it's true.


End file.
